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I am still here.

I sang Veruca Salt loudly today and cleaned my apt. preparing for my kitten! I am so excited. My African Violet is standing tall, and the petals are a healthy purple. I took it outside for a while today.

I finished "The Edible Woman," by Margaret Atwood. Wow. I hope I'll be able to write the way she does. I thought about putting my story in first person. I'm already changing the tense. But I don't know if that might be too close to my heart. However if it makes a better story I should do anything revision-wise that's necessary--

I've got swimmer's muscles peeping up on my arms now. My arms aren't like skin, sinews, and bones like when i was lifting weights and ended up looking like a Mypolex refugee. These are just some nice tones on some healthy arms that are mine. I'm still able to do full-body push ups. I feel really healthy, and I look much healthier than usual today. It's scary.

In my Chapter Ten Jamie's dealing with this body issue. She's lost enough weight to see some changes in her wrists, and she can see the bone above your wrist, which haunts her, because she couldn't feel it before, and it is not really something I can explain, any better than that. I mean why looking the way I'm supposed to (not all puffy faced) would be a frightening thing.

Pog wrote to me today, but it was very short. We're planning to go to the Faulkner Conference, and I was sure he hadn't mentioned it because he was backing out, but maybe I was wrong. I am always showing in my book how Jamie supposes things about other people that end up not being true, and it's mostly that she's just so sure no one thinks about her that she imagines herself invisible, but she's not. I write that, but i don't learn a damn thing.

I also finished my painting with the credit card house, and I've hung it in my bedroom. It's narcisstic to dispay one's own art, but no one'll see it unless they're in my bedroom. At that point I expect friends will be amused and guys won't be looking at the wall...

I think I'm going to brush up on my French.

Gertymac is Pog's screen name.

He wrote me today, and says he can't go to the Faulkner Conference, which in the back of my mind I kind of figured, but it is an acute disappointment. However I do plan on seeing him while I'm visiting my parents. And now I don't plan to go to the Faulkner Conference since I'd be totally alone.

I cried and said , "shit happens," and I am allowing myself to care and be upset instead of repressing my emotions only to errupt physically. It's ok to be sad, and I really want to tell him that I still feel attraction to him, but I don't know if maybe he already knows that. I think when I visit I'll see how he acts and then see if I still feel the way I do or not.

Right now I really don't want anyone but him. He's so smart and always great to debate anything with, he's got gorgeous eyebrows, and this nice goatee that makes him look "bad," but he's such a big teddy bear. 6'4 and soft, but not fat. Just perfect. But I know he's got a lot of shit to deal with, and I don't want to scare him or make him feel responsible for my emotions. I've written him so many poems.

When he ended up not visiting me in early May when i thought he was I went really nuts, and I'm not going to do that again. Like some people stay drunk for days I was acting out my addiction for days, and that was just horrible.

I need him, but I can't force the issue, so I accept the friendship he's emotionally able to offer and I cherish it.